The Kathy L. Chan Greenhouse, located on HudsonAlpha’s campus, is a state-of-the-art facility designed to help HudsonAlpha’s plant scientists advance their mission to use genomics to help sustainably feed and fuel our planet. The 14,000-square-foot facility includes two molecular lab spaces, a glasshouse with seven grow rooms, a bioinformatics lab, and many technologically advanced features.

Each grow room in the glasshouse is climate-controlled, closely replicating plants’ natural growing parameters. Scientists can control temperature, humidity, and day length. The on-site molecular labs allow scientists to collect samples from the plants in the greenhouse and quickly process them in the lab before detrimental degradation processes occur. The expert greenhouse staff works hand-in-hand with the scientists to provide the best plant care year-round.

The greenhouse’s features extend outside its doors to a public demonstration garden constructed in 2023. The Herb and Terry Lewis Demonstration Garden features a mixture of native plants, research plants that are also growing inside the greenhouse, and several carefully designed educational exhibits to offer the public a hands-on learning experience. That way, members of the public can explore and admire the plants HudsonAlpha researchers are studying.